Yule Go Crazy Trying to Win
by kats96
Summary: Got inspiration for this from Jane Lynch's intro to "Previously Unaired Christmas" when she mentioned that a sub-plot involving Blaine's obsession with yule logs was completely cut from the episode. This is that plot. Enjoy, and happy holidays!


"As per tradition, we will be holding our annual holiday _bûche de Noël_ contest," announced Madame Hawthorne. "For those of you who don't know, _bûche de Noël_ is a rolled cake that resembles a yule log and is popular in French holiday celebrations.

"The cakes will be judged on three criteria: taste, appearance, and creativity. There will be cash prizes awarded for the best cake in each category, as well as the best overall cake, which will be awarded $150."

Blaine perked up at this. He had just been contemplating how to make some money. He missed Kurt, and he was willing to do something drastic to get him back. Something drastic like… proposing. But he didn't have the money for an engagement ring. That $150 would be a good start…

"I have to win that contest," he said to himself. "I'll do _anything_ to win."

"Mr. Anderson? Mr. Anderson!"

Blaine looked up from sketching yule logs in his notebook.

"Perhaps you have some insights regarding today's reading assignment you would like to contribute to the class discussion." Mrs. Fultz took his notebook and scanned the page, frowning at his drawings. "Mr. Anderson, this is not art class. Please focus your attention on the discussion."

Blaine slid down in his seat, feeling the eyes of his classmates staring at him, and he felt a flush rush to his cheeks. "Yes ma'am," he mumbled. "May I please have my notebook back?"

"You may get it after class," Mrs. Fultz responded curtly, taking the notebook to her desk. "We wouldn't want temptation distracting us, now would we?"

Blaine dropped his head, the picture of defeat. "No, ma'am."

The rest of class was agony: Blaine's fingers twitched, wishing desperately he could continue his sketches. As soon as the bell rang, Blaine leaped out of his seat, scooping up his books in one fluid motion. He more or less sprinted to Mrs. Fultz's desk.

"Mr. Anderson, I hope we will not have this problem again."

Blaine shook his head rapidly. "No, Mrs. Fultz, we won't. I promise." He reached for his notebook and snatched it from his teacher's hands. He dashed out before Mrs. Fultz could finish lecturing him about the importance of paying attention to class literature discussions.

At lunch, he sat down with Sam and Tina and stared at his sandwich. "That might work," he muttered, picking up the top slice of bread. He studied it and rolled it into a log. "Yes, yes!" He dipped his finger in his mustard and began drawing lines and patterns into the bread.

Sam and Tina stopped talking and watched Blaine, looks of confused horror on their faces.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Sam finally asked.

"I needed to see things three-dimensionally," Blaine explained vaguely. "Sketching wasn't enough. I couldn't visualize the yule log."

"What?!" Tina shrieked.

"Okay, this is crazy. _You're_ crazy," Sam said, standing and taking ahold of Blaine's arm. "You need serious help."

He dragged Blaine to the guidance office and forcibly pushed him into a chair. Miss Pillsbury looked up from meticulously organizing pamphlets and widened her already impossibly wide doe eyes.

"Can I help you boys?" she asked, forcing an overly friendly and cheerful smile onto her face.

"Blaine is obsessed with yule logs," Sam said simply.

"E…Excuse me?" said Miss Pillsbury. "Yule logs?"

"Yes, Miss Pillsbury. It's bad. Really bad. He got in trouble in Lit for drawing yule logs, and just now at lunch, he was making his sandwich into one."

"Oh, my. I don't think I have a pamphlet about yule log obsession." She frantically flipped through racks of pamphlets just to be sure.

"I am not obsessed with yule logs," Blaine protested. "I just need to win the contest. This is wasting precious time that I could be using to plan and research. I have to start looking for recipes."

He pushed back his chair and left the guidance office, making his way to the library. There, he printed recipe after recipe after recipe. When he went to collect them, he discovered that only half had printed because the printer was out of ink.

Stack of recipes in hand, he went to find the librarian. "Excuse me," he said. "I think the printer is out of ink."

The librarian looked down her nose through the glasses that perched on the end. "That's strange. I just changed it the other day…" Then her gaze shifted to the stack of paper Blaine held. She frowned, lifting her eyes to meet Blaine's look of sheepishness.

"Yeah, so, um, if you could please just change the cartridge, the rest of my stuff will print and I'll be on my way…"

The librarian stood and pointed to the door. "I think it would be better if you left now."

"But I just need…"

"There are other students who need to print papers as well. Out!"

"My prize-winning recipe better not be one of the ones that didn't print," Blaine muttered as he left, shooting the librarian a glare.

"Blainey Days… Blainey Days!"

Blaine shook his head and straightened up from slouching against the lockers. "Oh, hi Tina."

"Blainey Days, you look terrible!"

Blaine yawned. "Yeah, well, I didn't get any sleep last night. I was up all night looking at pictures of yule logs and going through recipes. I'm trying to find the perfect one. It's time-consuming, yes, but I'll know it when I see it."

Tina frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're taking this contest way too seriously. It's definitely not worth losing sleep over."

"To me it is," Blaine snapped, slamming his locker shut. "I have something I'm saving up for, and the money from winning will be very helpful. So I'm sorry if everyone thinks I'm crazy for doing everything I can to win this contest. We're all allowed to have passions, aren't we?" He stormed away, forcing Tina to run to catch up with him.

"Blaine, I think it's good to be passionate about things, but not at the expense of your schoolwork or your health. Or glee club. You haven't sung a single note since you found out about this contest. You just sit in the corner, huddled over your notebook or reading recipes. Music is your passion, not yule logs."

"I'm sorry Tina, but winning this contest will mean a lot to me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go look at yule log pictures for inspiration for my cake design."

Mr. Schuester was leaning against the piano, flipping through sheet music when Blaine was herded in by Sue Sylvester. He straightened as Sue roughly pushed Blaine in front of her, then noticed something metal strapped across Blaine's wrists.

"Sue, what the hell are you doing? Are those handcuffs? Where did you get handcuffs?"

"They are indeed handcuffs. You aren't as stupid as you look," Sue responded. "And where I got them is of no importance to you or this situation. William, it has come to my attention that your dapper little gay hobbit here has been using the school's computers for pornographic pleasures. Now, I'd hate to take this to Figgins, because quite honestly I'm sick of hearing you defend your bunch of delinquents disguised as innocent show choir singers and having Figgins back you up, so I thought I'd just handle it myself and take the law into my own hands." She smiled manically.

"Coach Sylvester, I was not looking at porn!" Blaine objected, rattling the handcuffs.

"You most certainly were. I walked by your computer in the library and took one look at your screen, and what I saw was not school appropriate." She bent down and stared at Blaine. "Look at my eyes," she said, pointing to them. "You see how red they are? That's from them bleeding at the sight of the horrific images I saw on your screen."

"They were yule logs!"

"Oh, is that the new euphemism?" Sue shook her head. "You disgust me. You glee kids think you can get away with everything."

Blaine looked to Mr. Schue for support. "Trust me, Mr. Schue. I was just looking at yule logs for ideas for the _bûche de Noël_ contest."

"See, this is the problem with your glee kids, William," Sue said, slamming a palm down on the piano. "They've got names and excuses for everything."

"I'm telling the truth!" Blaine argued.

"I believe him, Sue," Will said. "Blaine is really serious about winning this contest, as I've seen in his lack of participation in glee club." Will looked pointedly at Blaine.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Schue, but this contest is really important to me."

Sue sighed dramatically. "And now you're boring me with your talk about winning despite being a bunch of utter and complete losers. You'll believe anything these kids say, won't you William?" She turned to leave.

"Sue, take off the handcuffs," Mr. Schue ordered. She huffed and turned back around, pulling a key from a string around her neck. She yanked off the handcuffs and stalked out, shouting, "If you want to have the future molestations of young children on your conscience because you let a budding sex criminal free, who am I to stop you?"

Mr. Schue groaned, then turned back to Blaine. "Blaine, this obsession with yule logs needs to stop," he said. "Several of your friends have come to me with their concerns, and quite frankly, I agree with them. Glee is a group effort. We need everyone to participate."

"I do. I'm just very focused on the contest right now. I promise, once it's over, you will have my full attention in glee club again."

Mr. Shue sighed heavily. "Alright, Blaine. You're free to go."

Blaine imagined the seas of people in the hallway parting to let him and his cake through. So in awe was everyone, wondering just what that cake looked like underneath its lid.

In actuality, no one cared. People brushed past him, some roughly, as if they hadn't even noticed he was carrying anything. But that didn't break his spirit. He held his head up high, the cake clutched proudly in front of him as he made his way to the French room.

He set his cake down on the long table in the front of the room with the other and carefully lifted the lid. Then he looked at the other cakes, then back at his. A hard knot twisted itself in his stomach. Dread.

"It's all wrong!" he cried, running out.

He ran blindly through the hallways, not caring who saw the tears streaming down his face. At some point, he found himself in front of the choir room doors. He pushed them open and ran to the chair in the corner, burying his face in his hands.

He slowly became aware of someone rubbing his shoulders. Tina. She was saying something over and over. He focused on the words. "It's okay. It's okay."

He lifted his head and met her eyes. "Tina, it's all wrong. The cake is all wrong. Everything. The recipe, the design, it's all wrong. I saw the others, and I knew… I knew mine was wrong. I spent hours, _hours_ trying desperately to perfect it, and…" He trailed off.

"Blaine, this isn't about the cake. I can tell. What's really wrong?"

Blaine heaved a shaky breath. "It's Kurt. I really miss him around the holidays. That's why I put all my focus this past week on the yule log contest. I wanted something to keep my mind off the fact that Kurt and I aren't together, something to help me forget about the sadness. When I saw all the other cakes, I knew the contest was officially over, and immediately thoughts of Kurt filled my head and the sadness came rushing back and now..." He gestured vaguely to himself.

"Look, Blaine. I know that there is nothing I can do or say to make this better, because I can't make Kurt take you back. But what I can do is take you back to French and help you celebrate when you win that contest. Okay?"

"You think I will?"

"Of course. You've put too much effort into this to lose. Come on." She stood and offered her arm, which Blaine took gratefully.

"And the grand prize winner with the best overall cake is…"

Tina gripped Blaine's hand, feeling him shaking with nerves.

"Blaine Anderson!"

Tina cheered as Blaine made his way up to the front of the room to collect his prize.

"Hold up the cake so everyone can see the winner," Madame Hawthorne urged him.

Blaine smiled and lifted his cake for everyone to see. It was, of course, a bow tie, one he frosted painstakingly to make it resemble a burning log.

As everyone clapped for him, it was hard for Blaine to be sad about Kurt. But he could still feel the sadness lurking in the shadows of his heart. Then he remembered the envelope in his pocket containing the $150, which pushed the sadness away. Someday, he would have enough money to buy Kurt an engagement ring, and they would spend the rest of their lives together. This he was sure of.


End file.
